About right-to-left features in Office

Microsoft Office provides right-to-left functionality and features designed to support languages that work in a right-to-left or a combined right-to-left, left-to-right environment for text entering, editing, and display.

To enable the right-to-left features in Office, you must be running a 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating system that has right-to-left support— for example, the Arabic version of Microsoft Windows XP or any language version of Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3.

Note Not all of the programs in Office support each right-to-left function or feature described in this topic. To find out if a specific program has a feature, see Help for the program you are using.

The user interface language is the language that appears in menus, dialog boxes, and wizards. Several right-to-left features in Office programs use the specified user interface language to determine the screen layout direction and the alignment of text within dialog boxes.

For example, when English is specified as the user interface language, the screen appears this way:

English user interface language

When Arabic is specified as the user interface language, the screen appears this way:

Arabic user interface language

The Microsoft Windows operating system uses an indicator on the taskbar (or on the Language bar, if it is visible) to display the current keyboard language. For example, the indicator for Arabic is Arabic keyboard indicator .

Direction is a general term that describes the reading order, alignment, and overall layout of screen elements. When right-to-left and left-to-right text are used together in the same sentence, paragraph, or control, the combined text is referred to as bidirectional or mixed.

The appearance of the insertion point varies to indicate a left-to-right run Left-to-right cursor

Insertion point indicating a left-to-right run

, or a right-to-left run Right-to-left cursor

. The cursor can either move according to the direction of the language encountered (logical movement) or to the next visually adjacent character (visual movement).

Text in a cell or field can be left-aligned, center-aligned, or right-aligned. In some programs, such as Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel, text can also have General alignment.

When text has General alignment, text and numbers are aligned according to the language of the first character entered— for example, text in the cell or field will be right-aligned if the first character is in a right-to-left language, and left-aligned if the first character is in a left-to-right language. You can override General alignment and switch to Left, Center, or Right alignment for individual objects.

Many right-to-left or combined right-to-left and left-to-right programs apply context rules that govern the reading order of text and text alignment. Context rules are determined by the type of control governing the text. Controls such as text boxes and combo boxes can support either plain text or rich text editing mode.

The context rules for the reading order and alignment of text are:

If the first strong character is left-to-right, reading order will be left-to-right and text will be left-aligned.
If the first strong character is right-to-left, reading order will be right-to-left and text will be right-aligned.
If only neutral characters are typed, the reading order and the alignment will follow the paragraph direction (can be left-to-right, or right-to-left) until the first strong character is typed.

Any time you change the first strong character from a left-to-right language to a right-to-left language, and vice versa, the reading order and the alignment change accordingly.

In word-processing programs— such as Microsoft Word— you can select, find, and replace individual diacritics and individual Arabic characters regardless of whether they are ligated. Each ligature and diacritic is managed as a discrete unit of a right-to-left language word.

The following example shows an Arabic word with a three-character ligature (as each character is selected).

In the Arabic language, numerals are available in two forms: Arabic and Hindi.

Arabic numerals Numerals used in North and South America, Europe, and in some Arabic countries/regions (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on).
Hindi numerals Numerals used in several Arabic countries/regions .

Note In Microsoft Windows XP you can change the current numeral display in right-to-left programs by using the Regional and Language Options icon in Control Panel. In Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, use the Regional Options icon in Control Panel.

The Hebrew calendar, the predominant calendar used in Israel among Hebrew speakers, is fully supported in Microsoft Office. Hijri dates are supported in Office programs enabled with right-to-left features. In several programs, you can modify date fields between Hijri and Gregorian calendars. For example, in Microsoft Outlook you can display date information in either calendar or, in some items, both calendars.

Notes

To see what date format the Microsoft Windows operating system is using in Windows XP, click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options in Control Panel, click Regional and Language Options and then click the Regional Options tab. In Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, double-click theRegional Options icon in Control Panel and then click the Date tab.
You can adjust the Hijri calendar in Windows XP by using the Customize button on the Regional Options tab of the Regional and Language Options in Control Panel. To customize the calendar in Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, use the settings on the Date tab of the Regional Options dialog box icon in Control Panel.

In Microsoft Office 2003, you can save files in HTML format for posting on the Web in right-to-left or left-to-right direction. Web pages with right-to-left direction are marked with the standard HTML DIR attribute in the HTML file. If the Web browser you are using recognizes the DIR attribute, the page will be displayed with right-to-left direction. If the DIR attribute is not recognized, the page will be displayed with left-to-right direction.

Show Tip

To view right-to-left Web pages, use a browser that recognizes the DIR attribute, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02 Middle East or later, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 for Complex Scripts, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.

Microsoft Office 2003 programs support the following code pages available to Arabic, Hebrew, and mixed-text users.

Arabic: UTF-8, ISO 8859-6, DOS-720, ASMO-708
Hebrew: UTF-8, ISO 8859-8, DOS-86

Show Tip

The Character Map, one of the Microsoft Windows Accessories, provides a view of the numerous codes supported by Microsoft Office 2003 programs. You can select a character from one of the right-to-left or left-to-right language font pages, copy it to the Clipboard, and then insert the character in your document.